In recent years, a number of new telephone service features have been provided by an Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN). The AIN evolved out of a need to increase the capabilities of the telephone network architecture in order to meet the growing needs of telephone customers or users. Additionally, as the number of people who rely on the Internet for communication increases, so too does the demand for the electronic transfer of data.
Referring now to FIG. 1, it is seen that an AIN-based network arrangement is provided within and/or in conjunction with a wire line telephone system LATA (Local Access and Transport Area) 101 that defines a calling service area. Note that a similar arrangement is also provided with and/or in conjunction with a wireless telephone system. Each LATA 101 (only one being shown in FIG. 1) includes stations (i.e. telephone lines and telephone equipment at the respective ends thereof) 103 and corresponding service switching points (SSPs) 105 (i.e., end offices or central offices). The SSPs 105 are each programmable switches which: recognize AIN-type calls; launch queries to service control points (SCPs) 107 (only one being shown in FIG. 1); and receive commands and data from SCPs 107 to further process and route AIN-type calls. A signal transfer point (STP) 109 may be employed to route signals between the SSPs 105, the SCPs 107, and other network elements. When one of the SSPs 105 is triggered by an AIN-type call, the triggered SSP 105 formulates an AIN service request and responds to call processing instructions from the network element in which the AIN service logic resides, typically at an SCP 107.
One type of event that may be arranged to set off an AIN trigger in an SSP 105 or the like is a call from a calling party to a called party where the called party subscribes to a messaging service and is unavailable to answer the call. Accordingly, the AIN trigger at issue is associated with the called party and with the SSP 105 of such called party. In response to the set-off trigger, the SSP 105 determines from the SCP 107 routing instructions for routing the call to the messaging platform. As may be appreciated, the messaging platform may play a greeting message to the calling party and then collect and store a voice message or the like therefrom. In addition, the messaging platform may collect and store call-related information including the time of the call and the telephone number of the calling party. Thus, the called party/subscriber may at some later time call into the messaging platform and retrieve the stored voice message from the calling party, as well as the stored time of the call and the stored telephone number of the calling party.
In at least some instances, the subscriber may wish to provide the calling party the option of being transferred to a transfer station rather than leaving the voice message. As may be appreciated, the transfer station is selected by the subscriber and has a corresponding telephone number. Such transfer station may for example be located where the subscriber is presently available or may be located where an assistant of the subscriber is available to converse with the calling party, among other locales.
In the prior art, the messaging platform resided on a telephone line of the public telephone system and thus was called into by the calling party over the telephone line thereof. As a result, the messaging platform transferred the call from the calling party to the transfer station by way of another telephone line, and then bridged the call between the calling party and the messaging platform and the call between the messaging platform and the transfer station to form a transfer connection between the calling party and the transfer station.
However, and significantly, such an arrangement is inefficient in that the messaging platform is using two telephone lines and bridging resources to form the transfer connection, and in that the messaging platform is dedicating resources to the transfer connection even though the messaging platform likely need not be further involved in the call. Potentially, the two telephone lines of the messaging platform, the bridging resources, and the messaging platform could be tied up for hours on end without any significant involvement on the part of the messaging platform with the transfer connection between the calling party and the transfer station.
Accordingly, a need exists for a transfer function for a messaging platform in a public telephone system, where the transfer function more efficiently establishes a transfer connection between a calling party calling a subscriber and a transfer station designated by the subscriber. More particularly, a need exists for such a transfer function that establishes a direct transfer connection so that messaging platform resources employed during the transfer are minimal, and so that the messaging platform can be removed from the transfer connection if need be.